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What’s new with Bullet Witch?

What’s going on? Jason here and it’s my first time writing up a blog post so go easy on me. I’m here today to talk about our latest title release: Bullet Witch on Windows PC. Now, I’m sure some of you haven’t even heard of this game. Bullet Witch was originally released on the Xbox 360 back in 2006.

But why now? Why bring Bullet Witch to PC? Well, we thought this had potential to be a fun action game with some tweaks and adjustments for modern gamers. I was a PS3 man, so I never had the chance to own an Xbox 360, which meant I never got to play this game. I first tried the original Bullet Witch game around August 2017, and boy, was it rough. The screen was dark, the game wasn’t very responsive, the AI was too buff and dumb, and the framerate was awful. We thought if these things could be fixed, the game would be much improved.

So, when the developers came to us for improvements, we had a few things on our list to bring this title in line with our other PC releases:

Framerate – This is an action title. It needed to at least be able to hit 60fps and sit there at a consistent rate. So, we asked for an uncapped fps limit. The developers were successful in getting the game to run at unlimited fps. And don’t worry. The game still has a 30, 60, and 120fps option, just in case your PC can’t run on unlimited.

Make the game brighter – When I was playing Bullet Witch on Xbox 360, my eyes were hurting because the game was so dim. We doubted that this would be difficult to fix, so we asked the devs and easily enough, they were able to crank up the brightness and make it easier to see without squinting.

Adjust the enemies – In the original JP version, the demons were literally bullet sponges. When you first start the game, you’re surrounded by three enemies. You could unload a full clip, and some would still be standing. The health was adjusted in the NA version, but the devs were using the JP build when they were porting the game. So, we asked them to reduce the health of enemies to replicate the NA version for a smoother experience. Also, the giant enemy, Gigas, was a joke in the console version. He’s supposed to be a big threat, yet he would never fire a single bullet in your direction. We asked the developers to tweak his A.I. so he would actually TRY to shoot at you. Now, he will aim in your direction. Sure, his accuracy isn’t the best, but at least you’ll have to try and avoid his attacks more than in the console version.

Weapons tweaking – Weapons needed to stay out longer. In the original Bullet Witch game, whenever Alicia stopped firing, she would immediately put away her weapon. So, to combat hordes of enemies coming from different directions, we wanted her weapon to stay out longer. The only exception was the Gatling gun, which made her mobility slower when drawn. To top it off, she was no master of quick draw, so we improved her draw speed, and the shotgun needed to be buffed. On the Xbox 360, the shotgun was almost useless since it did miniscule damage. Sure, it knocked them back, but the enemies would just get back up like they only got shoved down.

New dash feature – This is a brand-new feature that was not available in the console version. We originally found out about it when we were testing a debug build from the dev team. We were confused at first, since the dash wasn’t in the original game, but it had a nice graphical feather effect so we assumed it was a lost feature that was originally going to be in the console game. The dev team claimed it was just a debug feature and were planning to remove it in the release build, but since this dash made the game much faster in terms of movement, we asked them to leave it in (with a few tweaks).

Visual optimization – We tried to get as much optimization as possible for Bullet Witch. We have multiple resolutions and settings to make the game look cleaner. We also cleaned up the textures, so it doesn’t look so 2006, and we fixed some of the graphic text that had amusing typos (Emergency Medical “Survice”).

Those were some of the significant changes made to the PC version of Bullet Witch. The PC version also comes with all DLC that was released for the original game. That means all costumes and concept missions will be accessible. So now, you can go out in your favorite outfit and wreak havoc on those demons in style. That’s all I have for now. It’s good to enjoy some mid-2000 shooters from time-to-time, so go out there and have some fun with this game. Take it easy, everyone.